Sarah Lowndes

Crowds, Community and Contagion in Contemporary Britain presents the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to re-assess the neoliberal politics, xenophobia and racism that have undermined community cohesion in the United Kingdom since 1979, and which have continued largely unchecked through the last four decades.Guided by three interconnected ideas used throughout to scrutinise the meaning of culture as a way of life – Welsh cultural theorist Raymond Williams’ structure of feeling, Jamaican-British sociologist Stuart Hall’s conception of the conjuncture and Belgian political philosopher Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism – Sarah Lowndes finds that a renewed sense of mutual regard and collective responsibility are necessary to meet the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. She begins by reflecting on public gatherings in Britain from 1945 to 2019, moving on to analyse five key examples of public gatherings affected by the pandemic in 2020 onwards: Chinese New Year, the UEFA Champions League Final, VE Day street parties, Black Lives Matter demonstrations, and the cancellation of Eid ul-Adha celebrations. A thorough examination of how ideas proliferate and spread through our society, public sphere and collective consciousness, this book will appeal to scholars and upper-level students of cultural studies, cultural history, sociology and politics.

Crowds, Community and Contagion in Contemporary Britain presents the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to re-assess the neoliberal politics, xenophobia and racism that have undermined community cohesion in the United Kingdom since 1979, and which have continued largely unchecked through the last four decades.Guided by three interconnected ideas used throughout to scrutinise the meaning of culture as a way of life – Welsh cultural theorist Raymond Williams’ structure of feeling, Jamaican-British sociologist Stuart Hall’s conception of the conjuncture and Belgian political philosopher Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism – Sarah Lowndes finds that a renewed sense of mutual regard and collective responsibility are necessary to meet the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. She begins by reflecting on public gatherings in Britain from 1945 to 2019, moving on to analyse five key examples of public gatherings affected by the pandemic in 2020 onwards: Chinese New Year, the UEFA Champions League Final, VE Day street parties, Black Lives Matter demonstrations, and the cancellation of Eid ul-Adha celebrations. A thorough examination of how ideas proliferate and spread through our society, public sphere and collective consciousness, this book will appeal to scholars and upper-level students of cultural studies, cultural history, sociology and politics.

This book reflects on the motivations of creative practitioners who have moved out of cities from the mid-1960s onwards to establish creative homesteads. The book focuses on desert exile painter Agnes Martin, radical filmmaker and gardener Derek Jarman, and iconoclastic conceptual artist Chris Burden, detailing their connections to the cities they had left behind (New York, London, Los Angeles). Sarah Lowndes also examines how the rise of digital technologies has made it more possible for artists to live and work outside the major art centers, especially given the rising cost of living in London, Berlin, and New York, focusing on three peripheral creative centers: the seaside town of Hastings, England, the midsized metro of Leipzig, Germany, and post-industrial Detroit, USA.

This book considers the history of Do It Yourself art, music and publishing, demonstrating how DIY strategies have transitioned from being marginal, to emergent, to embedded. Through secondary research, observation and original interviews, each chapter details the peak period of a city’s subcultural activity and assesses the contemporary situation since the post-subcultural period circa 1995 in order to address the impact of globalized culture in the wake of digital and internet technologies. The book aims to challenge existing histories of sub-cultures by looking at less well-known scenes and movements as well as explore DIY "best practices" to trace a template of best approaches for sustainable, independent, locally owned creative enterprises.

This book reflects on the motivations of creative practitioners who have moved out of cities from the mid-1960s onwards to establish creative homesteads. The book focuses on desert exile painter Agnes Martin, radical filmmaker and gardener Derek Jarman, and iconoclastic conceptual artist Chris Burden, detailing their connections to the cities they had left behind (New York, London, Los Angeles). Sarah Lowndes also examines how the rise of digital technologies has made it more possible for artists to live and work outside the major art centers, especially given the rising cost of living in London, Berlin, and New York, focusing on three peripheral creative centers: the seaside town of Hastings, England, the midsized metro of Leipzig, Germany, and post-industrial Detroit, USA.

This book considers the history of Do It Yourself art, music and publishing, demonstrating how DIY strategies have transitioned from being marginal, to emergent, to embedded. Through secondary research, observation and 30 original interviews, each chapter analyses one of 15 creative cities (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dusseldorf, New York, London, Manchester, Cologne, Washington DC, Detroit, Berlin, Glasgow, Olympia (Washington), Portland (Oregon), Moscow and Istanbul) and assesses the contemporary situation in each in the post-subcultural era of digital and internet technologies. The book challenges existing subcultural histories by examining less well-known scenes as well as exploring DIY "best practices" to trace a template of best approaches for sustainable, independent, locally owned creative enterprises.

All Art is Political: Writings on Performative Art is a collection of recent conversations and writings by Glasgow based writer and curator Sarah Lowndes (author of Social Sculpture: Rise of the Glasgow Art Scene). The collection opens with a previously unpublished conversation from 2008 between Lowndes, Art and Language collaborator Mayo Thompson and AMM member and forefather of electroacoustic sound, Keith Rowe. Also included are essays on Berlin-based artist Thea Djordjadze and Glasgow-based Turner Prize winner Richard Wright. A 2011 conversation between Lowndes and American conceptual artist Susan Hiller and an essay exploring the late autobiographical works of German-Swiss artist and writer Dieter Roth complete this series of investigations into the performative practices of leading contemporary artists.

Dieter Roth (1930–1998) was an artist of astonishing breadth and diversity, producing graphics, drawings, paintings, sculptures, assemblages, and installation works involving sound recordings and video. He was also a composer, musician, poet, and writer. Roth was particularly noted for his influential artist's books, including Literaturwurst (1961–74), a series of books made using traditional sausage recipes but replacing the sausage meat with pages torn from other publications. Roth kept diaries and notebooks throughout his life, using and reusing them in his art and writing. The idea of keeping a diary—finding a way to record the passing of time and document his life—is a fundamental theme of his artwork. Illustrations of pages from Roth's diaries and copybooks of his major works, including A Diary (1982), Flat Waste (1975), Solo Scenes (1997–98), and Bar II (1983–97), accompany art historical assessments by contemporary scholars and contributions from his peer Jan Vos and his son Björn Roth. Distributed for The Fruitmarket Gallery Exhibition Schedule: The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh(08/02/12–10/14/12)

Sarah Lowndes looks back at the rise of the Glasgow art scene through the decades, from community art to Thatcher, New Wave to Teenage Fanclub.